She waited. My sister explained that the youth was a deaf mute cripple whose father had been beheaded for bank robbery.

Cassandra gasped.

I placed some crumpled bills on the little girl's palms. Quietly she received the gift and then smiled broadly, revealing a set of even, pearly teeth between which she clenched her money. She crawled back to where a wrinkled old woman with fuzzy gray hair waited. Excitedly she handed the money to the woman, who then embraced the girl. Very deliberately, the crone counted the money and carefully divided it into three parts. She placed the gift into the eager hands of two other women sitting beside her. And then, she tied the remainder in the loose end of her wrap.

Cassandra selected a dress, a pair of panties, and some cookies from our bags and walked to the young girl and handed them to her. The girl smiled. Cassandra's eyes filmed with misty tears; she waved goodbye. With a tear-choked voice, Blake said, "Let's get out of here, Mom."

Although my kids had always known about the poor and downtrodden before traveling to my homeland for the first time, they'd never experienced being in such a mass of needy people. Cassandra, now a freshman at University of California, Berkeley, as a pre-med student, would still like to own a car, but it's a more informed desire, tempered by wisdom. Even without a car, she knows she's still better off than most people in this world.

"Now I know what Oprah means when she says that 'If you're a woman and born in America, you're lucky.'"

Maybe most important, Cassandra has learned that she can be of service to others. She said that after the visit to the square that Christmas Day, the image of the little girl's smile as she handed her the clothes will forever be etched in her memory. She plans to return to Africa as a member of Doctors Without Borders, she says, "So I can donate my vacation time operating on the poor and those in need of medical care."

When I heard her say that, I knew I had not bungled.

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May Akabogu-Collins teaches economics and is a freelance writer.